As silicon is reaching its performance limit, other semiconductor materials are drawing attention as potential substrate materials for integrated circuits. 4H—SiC (silicon-carbide) materials have a high bandgap and therefore represent one promising alternative to silicon. However, 4H—SiC presents several design challenges. For example, it is difficult to form high performance ohmic contacts on 4H—SiC substrates. To date, nickel (Ni) based alloys are used to form ohmic contacts on silicon-carbide substrates. Due to the high surface stability of the 4H—SiC material, a high temperature (e.g., ≧800° C.) annealing step is required to alloy the Ni with the 4H—SiC. This high temperature can potentially degrade the quality and reliability of the gate oxide for an SiC based MOSFET. Furthermore, nickel based alloys are difficult to structure and difficult to etch. Moreover, nickel presents a cross-contamination risk with other technologies (e.g., Si technology) that are common to the fabrication tooling. Alternative methodology is needed to form an Ohmic contact for a silicon-carbide substrate without the above mentioned drawbacks.